Bluesman Rudy Wallang conducts guitar workshop

The 18th of September Shillong saw Rudy Wallang founder and front-man of the ever popular Shillong blues band Soulmate conducting a Blues Guitar Workshop at Kiddie’s Corner Secondary School, Lummawrie. The workshop was organized by Springboard Surprises and Unconvention India. There were a good number of musicians and guitarists in particular present at the workshop. It consisted of two sections, guitar technicality in general and the second section was based solely on Blues guitar.

In the first section of the workshop, he stressed on the different makes of the electric guitar and also gave a brief rundown on amps, effects and processors. According to him, it’s not the effects or processors that make a guitar sound crisp or muscular but it all depends on how the guitarist deals with the right trend of choosing the right guitar for whatever genre one decides to play. The second section was a series of blues backing tracks on which he jammed through differentiating the different blues styles. He used three guitars to show variations in tone due to the difference in pickups, neck and the body. He played mostly through his custom built Greg Bennett MB30 while also switching with the RL 30 and his Fender Squier Telecaster. He stressed on the point of finding “your own voice”, he even went further explaining about this sector by playing some of the blues legends licks in the likes of BB King, Albert King, Albert Collins and many others among the known Blues Legends, he then said that, being a guitar player there is a need for one to understand his/her guitar before actually modulating the tone. He also added that for him, he would step on stage before any show like it’s his last and give it his all, trying to get a “soul to soul” response with the crowd and he further admits, that to him it’s not only on a personal basis that this is important but as a musician each and everyone needs to have this kind of an attitude whilst performing live, in order to be able to sustain the interest and connection with the audience members.

It was a very informative, at the same time entertaining and he ended the workshop with a blues jam with various guitarists present and also said that in the future he would do the workshop again with a full setup and has a jam with anyone who wants to jam on stage.